Automotive, industrial drive Texas Instrument's strong Q4

Texas Instruments (Dallas, TX) enjoyed 4Q16 sales of $3.41 billion up 7 percent from the same quarter a year ago and made a net income of $1.05 billion also significantly up on a year before.

The company attributed the results to growth in automotive, industrial and analog sales that more than compensated for weakness in personal electronics applications. Analog sales in the quarter were up 10 percent on the same quarter a year before and embedded processing was up 6 percent.

For the full year TI made a net income of $3.59 billion on revenue of $13.37 billion. The full year revenue was up 2.8 percent.

At the end of the year TI had $3.5 billion of cash and short-term investments on hand and the company made the point that about 80 percent of that cash pile was owned by company's US entities.

The forecast for 1Q17 was for sales of between $3.17 billion and $3.43 billion. At the $3.25 billion mid-point that would be down in line with seasonal trends and slightly down on the $3.27 billion recorded in 2Q16.

TI also announced the promotion of Brian Crutcher to the position of chief operating officer.